People | Intelligent Systems Lab

Director

Dr. Qing (Cindy) Chang

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering at University of Michigan

M.S. University of Wisconsin - Madison

Qing (Cindy) Chang is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVA). With a strong emphasis on sustainability and efficiency, her research primarily revolves around the modeling, analysis, and control of dynamic manufacturing systems. She leverages adaptive control and machine learning-based techniques to enhance performance of smart manufacturing and explores the potential of human-robot collaborations in the manufacturing domain. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (including NSF CAREER award), Department of Energy (DOE), and various industries. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Chang amassed a decade of experience at General Motors Research & Development Center, where she received the highest award in GM, Boss Kettering Awards, three times in recognition of her research on improving production efficiency. Dr. Chang is an ASME fellow and has been recognized as one of 20 most influential professors in smart manufacturing by SME in 2020.

Graduate Student

Tian Yu

Email: [email protected]

Tian Yu Joined Intelligent Systems Lab in 2018. Before that, he obtained his B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 2016, and his M.S. degree from Brown University in 2018, both in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include production system control, human-robot collaboration in manufacturing setting and reinforcement learning etc.

Chen Li

Email: [email protected]

Chen received bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Miami University in 2018, and master's degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from University of Virginia in 2020. She is now a PhD student in mechanical engineering starting from 2020. Her research projects include modeling and control of production systems, as well as applications of deep learning and reinforcement learning in smart manufacturing systems. She has a cute dog named after Nikola Tesla, the greatest inventor of all time.

Kshitij 'Horizon' Bhatta

Email: [email protected]

Kshitij completed his BSME degree from University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2020 where he was the EV powertrain lead for the LoboMotorsports 2020 Formula SAE team. He then worked as a research assistant at the Chaos Lab in UNM from spring 2020 to fall 2021 where he worked on analysis and control of complex networks. He joined the Intelligent Systems Lab at the University of Virginia in Fall 2021. His research interests include production system modeling (State Space and Markov Decision Process) and control (Classical Control and Reinforcement learning methods), human-robot collaboration in manufacturing and Analysis of complex networks.

Muhammad Waseem

Email: [email protected]

Muhammad completed his bachelor and master in Industrial Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan. He worked as Lab Engineer at College of Aeronautical Engineering, Pakistan Airforce Academy and later on joined Manufacturing Lab at University of Engineering and Technology. He joined intelligent system lab in January 2022. His research work includes modelling and control of Robot-assisted multiproduct flexible production lines.

Mehregan Gilani Nejad

Email: [email protected]

Mehregan earned her bachelor's from the University of Tehran in Mechanical Engineering in 2021. In August 2022, she joined the Intelligent Systems Lab. Her research now includes human-robot interaction and learning from demonstration with the help of reinforcement learning.